Thing 6 - Blog Readers

I found Google reader very easy to use. I don't really follow that many blogs because I just don't have the time but I can see how having them all in one place and organized by folders would be an efficient way for me to manage them. I preferred the list view to the expanded view as that still seemed like overload to me - too many entries that I felt I had to look through. With the list view I can easily browse through the titles to see if there is something of interest. I don't see myself using the share or email features that much since for me the purpose of the blog reader would be to keep up with the content of the items rather than the need to share items or email them to other people. I'm going to try using Google Reader for awhile to see it if fits into my life or if it feels like just one more thing I feel I should be doing but which I don't really have the time for.

Thing 5 - Image Generators

I found some of these image generators to be interesting but many of them seemed pointless to me. I don't have a need to spell something out with zombies or put one person's head on another person's body. Maybe these things are good for personal blogs but they would not mesh with my library's website or blog guidelines as far as a consistent and professional look and feel.

Many of my creations looked really lame and I would never use them on our website. A lot of this stuff seems to exist for people who have too much free time on their hands (unlike me!). Since I did not care for many of the image generators provided in the list I searched for others that might have a real use for our library.

I used typogenerator to create the following image which could be used on our website, blog or myspace page.









I used superstickies.com to create a post-it note which I could use for advertising on our website.













I used the ALA Read Poster image generator to create the following image. It took awhile for me to find a photo that work size-wise without me having to spend time manipulating it's size or cropping it. I feel I could use an image like this in my library, on our blog or on our in-house video presentation. We also have a large-format printer that would allow us to create a poster.














I did find pciknik.com to be useful. I had some very dark photos that I was able to enhance the detail on. I used cooltext.com to easily create some website buttons.